Difference between revisions of "Anthropology" - New World Encyclopedia

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[[Category:Anthropology]]
 
[[Category:Anthropology]]
  
'''Anthropology''' (from the [[Greek language|Greek]] word ''άνθρωπος'', "human") consists of the study of [[Human|humankind]] (see genus ''[[Homo (genus)|Homo]]'').  It is [[holism|holistic]] in two senses: it is concerned with all humans at all times, and with all dimensions of humanity.  A primary trait that traditionally distinguished anthropology from other humanistic disciplines is an emphasis on cross-cultural comparisons. This distinction has, however, become increasingly the subject of controversy and debate, with anthropological methods now being commonly applied in single society/group studies.       
 
  
In the [[United States]], ''''''anthropology'''''' is traditionally divided into four sub-disciplines:
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'''Anthropology''' (from the [[Greek language|Greek]] word ''{{polytonic|ἄνθρωπος}}'', "human" or "person") consists of the study of [[humanity]] (see genus ''[[Homo (genus)|Homo]]''). It is [[holism|holistic]] in two senses: it is concerned with all humans at all times and with all dimensions of humanity. Anthropology is traditionally distinguished from other disciplines by its emphasis on [[Cultural relativism|cultural relativity]], in-depth examination of context, and [[cross-cultural studies|cross-cultural comparisons]]. More recently, it has also distinguished itself as a leader in [[culture critique]] and [[post-colonialism]].  Anthropology is methodologically diverse using both [[qualitative methods]] and [[quantitative methods]]. [[Case studies]] have historically played a key role in anthropology, for instance in producing [[ethnographies]] based on [[field research]].
* [[physical anthropology]], which studies [[primatology|primate behavior]], [[human evolution]], and [[population genetics]]; this field is also sometimes called [[biological anthropology]].
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[[Image:8403452 36f7580a25 o.jpg|right|330px|thumb|[[Initiation rite]] of the [[WaYao|Yao]] people of [[Malawi]]]]
* [[cultural anthropology]], (called [[social anthropology]] in the [[United Kingdom]] and now often known as [[socio-cultural anthropology]])Areas studied by cultural anthropologists include social networks, [[diffusion (anthropology)|diffusion]], social behavior, [[kinship]] patterns, law, politics, [[ideology]], religion, beliefs, patterns in production and consumption, exchange, socialization, gender, and other expressions of culture, with strong emphasis on the importance of [[fieldwork]], i.e living among the social group being studied for an extended period of time;
 
* [[linguistic anthropology]], which studies variation in [[language]] across time and space, the social uses of language, and the relationship between language and culture; and
 
* [[archaeology]], which studies the material remains of human [[society|societies]]. Archaeology itself is normally treated as a separate (but related) field in the rest of the world, although closely related to the anthropological field of [[material culture]], which deals with physical objects created or used within a living or past group as mediums of understanding its cultural values.
 
  
More recently, some anthropology programs began dividing the field into two, one emphasizing the [[humanities]] and [[critical theory]], the other emphasizing the [[natural science]]s and [[empiricism|empirical observation]].
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==Historical and institutional context==
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The anthropologist [[Eric Wolf]] once described anthropology as "the most scientific of the humanities, and the most humanistic of the sciences." Contemporary anthropologists claim a number of earlier thinkers as their forebears, and the discipline has several sources; [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]], for example, claimed [[Montaigne]] and [[Rousseau]] as important influences. Anthropology can best be understood as an outgrowth of the [[Age of Enlightenment]], a period when Europeans attempted systematically to study human behavior. The traditions of [[jurisprudence]], [[history]], [[philology]], and [[sociology]] then evolved into something more closely resembling the modern views of these disciplines and informed the development of the [[social sciences]], of which anthropology was a part. At the same time, the [[romanticism|romantic]] reaction to the Enlightenment produced thinkers, such as [[Johann Gottfried Herder]] and later [[Wilhelm Dilthey]], whose work formed the basis for the "culture concept," which is central to the discipline.
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[[Image:Table of Natural History, Cyclopaedia, Volume 2.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Table of natural history, 1728 ''[[Cyclopaedia]]'']]Institutionally, anthropology emerged from the development of [[natural history]] (expounded by authors such as [[Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon|Buffon]]) that occurred during the European colonization of the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.  Programs of ethnographic study have their origins in this era as the study of the "human primitives" overseen by colonial administrations.  There was a tendency in late 18th century Enlightenment thought to understand human society as natural phenomena that behaved in accordance with certain principles and that could be observed empirically.<ref>see, for instance, the writing of [[Auguste Comte]]</ref> In some ways, studying the language, culture, physiology, and artifacts of European colonies was not unlike studying the flora and fauna of those places. Some critics point to the fact that the material culture of "[[civilization|civilized]]" nations such as [[China]] have historically been displayed in fine-art museums alongside European art, while artifacts from African and Native North American cultures were displayed in Natural History Museums, alongside dinosaur bones and nature dioramas.{{fact}}  The [[British Museum]] or the Parisian [[Musée de l'Homme]] are examples of such museums&mdash;the Musée de l'Homme held the "[[Hottentot Venus]]" remains until the 1970s. Saartje Baartman, a [[Namaqua]] woman, was examined by anatomist [[Georges Cuvier]]. This being said, curatorial practice has changed dramatically in recent years, and it would be inaccurate to see anthropology as merely an extension of colonial rule and European [[chauvinism]], since its relationship to [[imperialism]] was and is complex.{{fact}} <ref> Museums were not the only site of anthropological studies: with the [[New Imperialism]] period, starting in the 1870s, [[zoo]]s became unattended "laboratories," especially the so-called "ethnological exhibitions" or "Negro villages." Thus, "savages" from the colonies were displayed, often nudes, in cages, in what has been called "[[human zoos]]." For example, in [[1906]], anthropologist [[Madison Grant]] put a Congolese [[pygmy]] named [[Ota Benga]] in a cage in the [[Bronx Zoo]], and labelled him "the missing link" between an orangutan and the "white race" (Grant, a renowned [[eugenicist]], was the author of ''[[The Passing of the Great Race]]'' (1916). Such exhibitions were attempts to illustrate and prove in the same movement the validity of [[scientific racism]], the first formulation of which may be found in [[Arthur de Gobineau]]'s ''[[An Essay on the Inequality of Human Races]]'' (1853-55). In 1931, the [[Colonial Exhibition]] in Paris still displayed [[Kanaks]] from [[New Caledonia]] in the "indigenous village"; it received 24 million visitors in six months, thus demonstrating the popularity of such "human zoos."</ref>
  
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Anthropology grew increasingly distinct from natural history, and by the end of the nineteenth century, it had begun to crystallize into its modern form; by 1935, for example, it was possible for T. K. Penniman to write a history of the discipline entitled "A Hundred Years of Anthropology." Early anthropology was dominated by proponents of [[unilineal evolution|unilinealism]], who argued that all societies passed through a single evolutionary process, from the most primitive to the most advanced. Non-European societies were thus seen as evolutionary "living fossils," which could be studied in order to understand the European past. Scholars wrote histories of prehistoric migrations that were sometimes valuable but often also fanciful. It was during this time that Europeans, such as [[Paul Rivet]], first accurately traced [[polynesia|Polynesian]] migrations across the [[Pacific Ocean]]&mdash;though some of them believed those emigrations had originated in [[Egypt]]. Finally, concepts of [[race]] were developed with a view to better understanding the nature of the biological variation within the Human species, and tools such as [[Anthropometry]] were devised as a means of measuring and categorizing this variation, not just within the genus Homo, but in fossil [[Hominids]] and primates as well. Unfortunately racialistic concepts were abused by a few and gave rise to theories of [[Scientific racism]]. 
  
==Historical and institutional context==
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<!--I'm really not sure where to put this.—>Anténor Firmin wrote De l'égalité des races humaines (1885) as a direct rebuttal to Count Arthur de Gobineau’s polemical four-volume work ''Essai sur l'inegalite des Races Humaines'' (1853–1855), which asserted the superiority of the Aryan race and the inferiority of blacks and other people of color. Firmin’s work argued the opposite, that "all men are endowed with the same qualities and the same faults, without distinction of color or anatomical form. The races are equal" (pp. 450). Firmin grew up in Haiti, and was admitted to the Societé d’ Anthropologie de Paris in 1884 while serving as a diplomat. His persuasive critique and rigorous analysis of many of that society’s leading scholars made him an early pioneer in the so-called vindicationist struggle in anthropology. Many scholars also associate his work with the very first ideas of Pan-Africanism.
:''Main Article: [[History of anthropology ]]''
 
The anthropologist [[Eric Wolf]] once characterized anthropology as the most scientific of the humanities, and the most humanistic of the social sciences. Understanding how anthropology developed contributes to understanding how it fits into other academic disciplines.
 
  
Contemporary anthropologists claim a number of earlier thinkers as their forebearers and the discipline has several sources. However, anthropology can best be understood as an outgrowth of the [[Age of Enlightenment]]. It was during this period that Europeans attempted systematically to study human behavior. Traditions of [[jurisprudence]], [[history]], [[philology]] and [[sociology]] developed during this time and informed the development of the [[social sciences]] of which anthropology was a part. At the same time, the [[romanticism| romantic]] reaction to the Enlightenment produced thinkers such as [[Herder]] and later [[Wilhelm Dilthey]] whose work formed the basis for the culture concept which is central to the discipline.
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In the twentieth century, academic disciplines began to organize around three main domains. The domain of the ''[[sciences]]'' seeks to derive natural laws through reproducible and falsifiable experiments; that of the ''[[humanities]]'' reflects an attempt to study different national traditions, in the form of [[history]] and the [[art]]s, as an attempt to provide people in emerging nation-states with a sense of coherence; the ''[[social sciences]]'' emerged at this time as an attempt to develop scientific methods to address social phenomena and provide a universal basis for social knowledge. Anthropology does not easily fit into one of these categories, and different branches of anthropology draw on one or more of these domains.
  
These intellectual movements in part grappled with one of the greatest paradoxes of [[modernity]]: as the world is becoming smaller and more integrated, people's experience of the world is increasingly atomized and dispersed.  As [[Karl Marx]] and [[Friedrich Engels]] observed in the [[1840s]]:
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Drawing on the methods of the [[natural science]]s and developing new techniques involving not only structured interviews, but unstructured ''participant observation,'' and drawing on the new [[theory of evolution]] through [[natural selection]], the branches of anthropology proposed the scientific study of a new object: humankind, conceived of as a whole. Crucial to this study is the concept of ''culture,'' which anthropologists defined both as a universal capacity and a propensity for social learning, thinking, and acting (which they saw as a product of human evolution and something that distinguishes ''[[Homo sapiens]]''&mdash;and perhaps all species of genus ''[[Hominoid|Homo]]''&mdash;from other species), and as a particular adaptation to local conditions, which takes the form of highly variable beliefs and practices. Thus, culture not only transcends the opposition between nature and nurture, but absorbs the peculiarly European distinction among politics, religion, kinship, and the economy as autonomous domains. Anthropology thus transcends the divisions between the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities to explore the biological, linguistic, material, and symbolic dimensions of humankind in all forms
  
:All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed.  They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe.  In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes.  In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal interdependence of nations.
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==Anthropology in the United States==
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===Jacksonian America and polygenism===
  
Ironically, this universal interdependence, rather than leading to greater human solidarity, has coincided with increasing racial, ethnic, religious, and class divisions, and new &#8211; and to some confusing or disturbing &#8211; cultural expressions. These are the conditions of life with which people today must contend, but they have their origins in processes that began in the [[16th century]] and accelerated in the [[19th century]].
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Late eighteenth century ethnology established the scientific foundation for the field, which began to mature when [[Andrew Jackson]] was President of the United States (1829-1837).  Jackson was responsible for implementing the [[Indian Removal Act]], the coerced and forced removal of an estimated 100,000 American Indians during the 1830s to Indian Territory in present-day [[Oklahoma]]; for insuring that the franchise was extended to all white men, irrespective of financial means while denying virtually all black men the right to vote; and, for suppressing abolitionists’ efforts to end slavery while vigorously defending that institution. Finally, he was responsible for appointing Chief Justice Roger B. Taney who would decide, in Scott v. Sandford (1857), that Negroes were “beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race. . . and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” As a result of this decision, black people, whether free or enslaved, could never become citizens of the United States.  
  
Institutionally anthropology emerged from [[natural history]] (expounded by authors such as [[Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon|Buffon]]). This was the study of human beings - typically people living in European [[colonialism| colonies]]. Thus studying the language, culture, physiology, and artifacts of European colonies was more or less equivalent to studying the flora and fauna of those places. It was for this reason, for instance, that [[Lewis Henry Morgan]] could write monographs on both ''The League of the Iroquois'' and ''The American Beaver and His Works''. This is also why the material culture of 'civilized' nations such as China have historically been displayed in fine arts museums alongside European art while artifacts from Africa or Native North American cultures were displayed in Natural History Museums with dinosaur bones and nature dioramas. This being said, curatorial practice has changed dramatically in recent years, and it would be wrong to see anthropology as merely an extension of colonial rule and European [[chauvinism]], since its relationship to [[imperialism]] was and is complex.
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It was in this context that the so-called American School of Anthropology thrived as the champion of polygenism or the doctrine of multiple origins&mdash;sparking a debate between those influenced by the Bible who believed in the unity of humanity and those who argued from a scientific standpoint for the plurality of origins and the antiquity of distinct types. Like the monogenists, these theories were not monolithic and often used words like races, species, hybrid, and mongrel interchangeably. A scientific consensus began to emerge during this period “that there exists a Genus Homo, embracing many primordial types of ‘species.’” Charles Caldwell, [[Samuel George Morton]], Samuel A. Cartwright, George Gliddon, Josiah C. Nott, and [[Louis Agassiz]], and even [[South Carolina]] Governor James Henry Hammond were all influential proponents of this school. While some were disinterested scientists, others were passionate advocates who used science to promote slavery in a period of increasing sectional strife. All were complicit in establishing the putative science that justified slavery, informed the [[Dred Scott]] decision, underpinned miscegenation laws, and eventually fueled [[Jim Crow laws|Jim Crow]]. Samuel G. Morton, for example, claimed to be just a scientist but he did not hesitate to provide evidence of Negro inferiority to  [[John C. Calhoun]], the prominent pro-slavery Secretary of State to help him negotiate the annexation of [[Texas]] as a slave state.
  
Anthropology grew increasingly distinct from natural history and by the end of the nineteenth century the discipline began to crystallize into its modern form - by 1935, for example, it was possible for T.K. Penniman to write a history of the discipline entitled ''A Hundred Years of Anthropology''. At the time, the field was dominated by 'the comparative method'. It was assumed that all societies passed through a single evolutionary process from the most primitive to most advanced. Non-European societies were thus seen as evolutionary 'living fossils' that could be studied in order to understand the European past. Scholars wrote histories of prehistoric migrations which were sometimes valuable but often also fanciful. It was during this time that Europeans first accurately traced [[polynesia|Polynesian]] migrations across the [[Pacific Ocean]] for instance - although some of them believed it originated in [[Egypt]]. Finally, the concept of [[race]] was actively discussed as a way to classify - and rank - human beings based on inherent biological difference.
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===Types of Mankind, 1854===
  
In the twentieth century academic disciplines began to organize around three main domains. The "[[sciences]]" seeks to derive natural laws through reproducible and falsifiable experiments.   The "[[humanities]]" reflected an attempt to study different national traditions, in the form of [[history]] and the [[art]]s, as an attempt to provide people in emerging nation-states with a sense of coherence.  The "[[social sciences]]" emerged at this time as an attempt to develop scientific methods to address social phenomena, in an attempt to provide a universal basis for social knowledge. Anthropology does not easily fit into one of these categories, and different branches of anthropology draw on one or more of these domains.
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The high-water mark of polygenitic theories was Josiah Nott and Gliddon’s voluminous eight-hundred page tome entitled ''Types of Mankind'', published in 1854. Reproducing the work of Louis Agassiz and Samuel Morton, the authors spread the virulent and explicitly racist views to a wider, more popular audience. The first printing sold out quickly and by the end of the century it had undergone nine editions. Although many Southerners felt that all the justification for slavery they needed was found in the Bible, others used the new science to defend slavery and the repression of American Indians. Abolitionists, however, felt they had to take this science on on its own terms. And for the first time, African American intellectuals waded into the contentious debate. In the immediate wake of ''Types of Mankind'' and during the pitched political battles that led to Civil War, [[Frederick Douglass]] (1818-1895), the statesman and persuasive abolitionist, directly attacked the leading theorists of the American School of Anthropology. In an 1854 address, entitled “The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered,” Douglass argued that "by making the enslaved a character fit only for slavery, [slaveowners] excuse themselves for refusing to make the slave a freeman.... For let it be once granted that the human race are of multitudinous origin, naturally different in their moral, physical, and intellectual capacities... a chance is left for slavery, as a necessary institution.... There is no doubt that Messrs. Nott, Glidden, Morton, Smith and Agassiz were duly consulted by our slavery propagating statesmen" (p. 287).
  
Drawing on the methods of the [[natural science]]s as well as developing new techniques involving not only structured interviews but unstructured "participant-observation" &#8211; and drawing on the new [[theory of evolution]] through [[natural selection]], they proposed the scientific study of a new object: "humankind," conceived of as a wholeCrucial to this study is the concept "culture," which anthropologists defined both as a universal capacity and propensity for social learning, thinking, and acting (which they see as a product of human evolution and something that distinguishes Homo sapiens &#8211; and perhaps all species of genus ''[[Hominoid|Homo]]'' &#8211; from other species), and as a particular adaptation to local conditions that takes the form of highly variable beliefs and practicesThus, "culture" not only transcends the opposition between nature and nurture; it transcends and absorbs the peculiarly European distinction between politics, religion, kinship, and the economy as autonomous domainsAnthropology thus transcends the divisions between the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities to explore the biological, linguistic, material, and symbolic dimensions of humankind in all forms.
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===Boasian anthropology===<!--This subsection needs to be expanded so that it occupies more space than the two that precede it.—>
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[[Image:FranzBoas.jpg|thumb|right|[[Franz Boas]], one of the pioneers of modern anthropology, often called the "Father of American Anthropology"]]
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Cultural anthropology in the United States was influenced greatly by the ready availability of Native American societies as ethnographic subjects.  The field was pioneered by staff of the [[Bureau of Indian Affairs]] and the Smithsonian Institution's [[Bureau of American Ethnology]], men such as [[John Wesley Powell]] and [[Frank Hamilton Cushing]][[Lewis Henry Morgan]] (1818-1881), a lawyer from [[Rochester, New York]], became an advocate for and ethnological scholar of the [[Iroquois]]His comparative analyses of religion, government, material culture, and especially kinship patterns proved to be influential contributions to the field of anthropology.  Like other scholars of his day (such as [[Edward Tylor]]), Morgan argued that human societies could be classified into categories of cultural evolution on a scale of progression that ranged from ''savagery'', to ''barbarism'', to ''civilization''Generally, Morgan used technology (such as bowmaking or pottery) as an indicator of position on this scale.<ref>This would be influential on the ideas of [[Karl Marx]].</ref>
  
==Anthropology in the U.S.==
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[[Franz Boas]] established academic anthropology in the United States in opposition to this sort of evolutionary perspective. Boasian anthropology was politically active and suspicious of research dictated by the U.S. government and wealthy patrons. It was rigorously empirical and skeptical of overgeneralizations and attempts to establish universal laws. Boas studied immigrant children to demonstrate that biological race was not immutable, and that human conduct and behavior resulted from nurture, rather than nature.
Anthropology in the United States was pioneered by staff of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology, such as John Wesley Powell and Frank Hamilton Cushing.  Academic Anthropology was established by [[Franz Boas]], who used his positions at [[Columbia University]] and the [[American Museum of Natural History]] to train and develop multiple generations of students. Boasian anthropology was politically active and suspicious of research dictated by the U.S. government or wealthy patrons. It was also rigorously empirical and skeptical of over-generalizations and attempts to establish universal laws. Boas studied immigrant children in order to demonstrate that biological race was not immutable and that human conduct and behavior was the result of nurture rather than nature.  
 
  
Drawing on his German roots, he argued that the world was full of distinct 'cultures' rather than societies whose evolution could be measured by how much or how little 'civilization' they had. Boas felt that each culture has to be studied in its particularity, and argued that cross-cultural generalizations like those made in the [[natural science]]s were not possible. In doing so Boas fought discrimination against immigrants, African Americans, and Native North Americans. Many American anthropologists adopted Boas' agenda for social reform, and theories of race continue to be popular targets for anthropologists today.
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Influenced by the German tradition, Boas argued that the world was full of distinct ''cultures,'' rather than societies whose evolution could be measured by how much or how little "civilization" they had. He believed that each culture has to be studied in its particularity, and argued that cross-cultural generalizations, like those made in the [[natural science]]s, were not possible. In doing so, he fought discrimination against immigrants, African Americans, and Native North Americans. Many American anthropologists adopted his agenda for social reform, and theories of race continue to be popular targets for anthropologists today.
  
Boas's first generation of students included [[Alfred Kroeber]], [[Robert Lowie]], and [[Edward Sapir]]. All of these scholars produced richly detailed studies which were first to describe Native North America. In doing so they provided a wealth of details used to attack the theory of a single evolutionary process. Their focus on Native American languages also helped establish [[linguistics]] as a truly general science and free it from its historical focus on [[Indo-European languages]].
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Boas used his positions at [[Columbia University]] and the [[American Museum of Natural History]] to train and develop multiple generations of students. His first generation of students included [[Alfred Kroeber]], [[Robert Lowie]], [[Edward Sapir]] and [[Ruth Benedict]], all of whom produced richly detailed studies of indigenous North American cultures. They provided a wealth of details used to attack the theory of a single evolutionary process. Kroeber and Sapir's focus on Native American languages helped establish [[linguistics]] as a truly general science and free it from its historical focus on [[Indo-European languages]].
  
The publication of [[Alfred Kroeber]]'s textbook ''Anthropology'' marked a turning point in American anthropology. After three decades of amassing material the urge to generalize grew. This was most obvious in the 'Culture and Personality' studies carried out by younger Boasians such as [[Margaret Mead]] and [[Ruth Benedict]]. Influenced by psychoanalytic psychologists such as [[Sigmund Freud]] and [[Carl Jung]], these authors sought to understand that way that individual personalities were shaped by the wider cultural and social forces in which they grew up. While Culture and Personality works such as ''Coming of Age in Samoa'' and ''The Chrysanthemum and the Sword'' remain popular with the American public, Mead and Benedict never had the impact on the discipline of anthropology that some expected. While Boas had planned that Ruth Benedict succeed him as chair of Columbia's anthropology department, she was sidelined by [[Ralph Linton]], and Mead was limited to her offices at the [[American Museum of Natural History| ANHM]].
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<!--This paragraph is a jumble of statements with no particular focus.—>The publication of [[Alfred Kroeber]]'s textbook, ''Anthropology,'' marked a turning point in American anthropology. After three decades of amassing material, Boasians felt a growing urge to generalize. This was most obvious in the 'Culture and Personality' studies carried out by younger Boasians such as [[Margaret Mead]] and [[Ruth Benedict]]. Influenced by psychoanalytic psychologists such as [[Sigmund Freud]] and [[Carl Jung]], these authors sought to understand the way that individual personalities were shaped by the wider cultural and social forces in which they grew up. Though such works as ''Coming of Age in Samoa'' and ''The Chrysanthemum and the Sword'' remain popular with the American public, Mead and Benedict never had the impact on the discipline of anthropology that some expected. Boas had planned for Ruth Benedict to succeed him as chair of Columbia's anthropology department, but she was sidelined by [[Ralph Linton]], and Mead was limited to her offices at the [[American Museum of Natural History|AMNH]].
  
 
==Anthropology in Britain==
 
==Anthropology in Britain==
Whereas Boas picked his opponents to pieces through attention to detail, in Britain modern anthropology was formed by rejecting historical reconstruction in the name of a science of society that focused on analyzing how societies held together in the present.
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Whereas Boas picked his opponents to pieces through attention to detail, modern anthropology in Britain was formed by rejecting historical reconstruction in the name of a science of society that focused on analyzing how societies held together in the present.
  
The two most important names in this tradition were [[Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown]] and [[Bronislaw Malinowski]], both of whom released seminal works in 1922. Radcliffe-Brown's initial fieldwork in the [[Andaman Islands]] was carried out in the old style, but after reading [[Émile Durkheim]] he published an account of his research (entitled simply ''The Andaman Islanders'') which drew heavily on the French sociologist. Over time he developed an approach known as structure-functionalism, which focused on how institutions in societies worked to balance out or create an equilibrium in the social system to keep it functioning harmoniously. [[Bronislaw Malinowski| Malinowski]], on the other hand, advocated an unhyphenated 'functionalism' which examined how society functioned to meet individual needs. Malinowski is best known not for his theory, however, but for his detailed ethnography and advances in methodology. His classic ''Argonauts of the Western Pacific'' advocated getting 'the native's point of view' and an approach to field work that became standard in the field.
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The two most important scholars in this tradition were [[Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown]] and [[Bronislaw Malinowski]], both of whom released seminal works in 1922. Radcliffe-Brown's initial fieldwork, in the [[Andaman Islands]], was carried out in the old style of historical reconstruction.  After reading the work of French sociologists [[Émile Durkheim]] and [[Marcel Mauss]], Radcliffe-Brown published an account of his research (entitled simply ''The Andaman Islanders'') that paid close attention to the meaning and purpose of rituals and myths. Over time, he developed an approach known as [[structural functionalism|structural-functionalism]], which focused on how institutions in societies worked to balance out or create an equilibrium in the social system to keep it functioning harmoniously. [[Bronislaw Malinowski|Malinowski]], in contrast, advocated an unhyphenated [[Functionalism (sociology)|functionalism]], which examined how society functioned to meet individual needs. He is better known, however, for his detailed [[ethnography]] and advances in methodology. His classic ethnography, ''Argonauts of the Western Pacific,'' advocated getting "the native's point of view" and an approach to fieldwork that became standard in the field.
  
Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown's success stem from the fact that they, like Boas, actively trained students and aggressively built up institutions which furthered their programmatic ambitions. This was particularly the case with Radcliffe-Brown, who spread his agenda for 'Social Anthropology' by teaching at universities across the [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]]. From the late 1930s until the post-war period a string of monographs and edited volumes appeared which cemented the paradigm of British Social Anthropology. Famous ethnographies include ''The Nuer'' by [[Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard]] and ''The Dynamics of Clanship Among the Tallensi'' by [[Meyer Fortes]], while well known edited volumes include ''African Systems of Kinship and Marriage'' and ''African Political Systems''.
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Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown's influence stemmed from the fact that they, like Boas, actively trained students and aggressively built up institutions that furthered their programmatic ambitions. This was particularly the case with Radcliffe-Brown, who spread his agenda for "Social Anthropology" by teaching at universities across the [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]]. From the late 1930s until the postwar period appeared a string of monographs and edited volumes that cemented the paradigm of British Social Anthropology. Famous ethnographies include ''The Nuer,'' by [[Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard]], and ''The Dynamics of Clanship Among the Tallensi,'' by [[Meyer Fortes]]; well-known edited volumes include ''African Systems of Kinship and Marriage'' and ''African Political Systems.'' Contemporary [[social anthropology]] is international and has branched in many directions.
  
 
==Anthropology in France==
 
==Anthropology in France==
Anthropology in France has a less clear genealogy than the British and American traditions. Most commentators consider [[Marcel Mauss]] to be the founder of the French anthropological tradition. Mauss was a member of [[Émile Durkheim| Durkheim's]] [[Annee Sociologique]] group, and while Durkheim and other examined the state of modern societies, Mauss and his collaborators (such as [[Henri Hubert]] and [[Robert Hertz]]) drew on ethnography and philology to analyze societies which were not as 'differentiated' as European nation states. In particular, Mauss's ''Essay on the Gift'' was to prove of enduring relevance in anthropological studies of [[trade|exchange]] and [[reciprocity (cultural anthropology)|reciprocity]].
 
  
Throughout the interwar years, French interest in anthropology often dovetailed with wider cultural movements such as [[surrealism]] and [[primitivism (art movement)| primitivism]] which drew on ethnography for inspiration. [[Marcel Griaule]] and [[Michel Leiris]] are examples of people who combined anthropology with the French avant-garde. During this time most of what is known as ''ethnologie'' was restricted to museums, and anthropology had a close relationship with studies of [[folklore]].
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Anthropology in France has a less clear genealogy than the British and American traditions. Most commentators consider [[Marcel Mauss]] to be the founder of the French anthropological tradition. Mauss was a member of [[Émile Durkheim|Durkheim's]] [[Année Sociologique]] group, and while Durkheim and others examined the state of modern societies, Mauss and his collaborators (such as [[Henri Hubert]] and [[Robert Hertz]]) drew on ethnography and philology to analyze societies which were not as 'differentiated' as European nation states. In particular, Mauss's ''[[The Gift (book)|Essay on the Gift]]'' was to prove of enduring relevance in anthropological studies of [[trade|exchange]] and [[reciprocity (cultural anthropology)|reciprocity]].
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Throughout the interwar years, French interest in anthropology often dovetailed with wider cultural movements such as [[surrealism]] and [[primitivism (art movement)|primitivism]] which drew on ethnography for inspiration. [[Marcel Griaule]] and [[Michel Leiris]] are examples of people who combined anthropology with the French avant-garde. During this time most of what is known as ''ethnologie'' was restricted to museums, such as the [[Musée de l'Homme]] founded by [[Paul Rivet]], and anthropology had a close relationship with studies of [[folklore]].
  
Above all, however, it was [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]] who helped institutionalize anthropology in France. In addition to the enormous influence his [[structuralism]] exerted across multiple disciplines, Lévi-Strauss established ties with American and British anthropologists. At the same time he established centers and laboratories within France to provide an institutional context within anthropology while training influential students such as [[Maurice Godelier]] and [[Francoise Heritier]] who would prove influential in the world of French anthropology. Much of the distinct character of France's anthropology today is a result of the fact that most anthropology is carried out in nationally-funded research laboratories rather than academic departments in universities.
+
Above all, however, it was [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]] who helped institutionalize anthropology in France. In addition to the enormous influence his [[structuralism]] exerted across multiple disciplines, Lévi-Strauss established ties with American and British anthropologists. At the same time he established centers and laboratories within France to provide an institutional context within anthropology while training influential students such as [[Maurice Godelier]] and [[Françoise Héritier]] who would prove influential in the world of French anthropology. Much of the distinct character of France's anthropology today is a result of the fact that most anthropology is carried out in nationally funded research laboratories ([[CNRS]]) rather than academic departments in universities.  
  
==Anthropology after World War Two==
+
Other influential writers in the 1970s include [[Pierre Clastres]], who explains in his books on the [[Guayaki]] tribe in [[Paraguay]] that "primitive societies" actively oppose the institution of the [[state]]. Therefore, these stateless societies are not less evolved than societies with states, but took the active choice of conjuring the institution of [[authority]] as a separate function from society. The [[Leadership|leader]] is only a spokeperson for the group when it has to deal with other groups ("international relations") but has no inside authority, and may be violently removed if he attempts to abuse this position.
Before [[WWII]] British 'social anthropology' and American 'cultural anthropology' were still distinct traditions. It was after the war that the two would blend to create a 'sociocultural' anthropology.
 
  
In the 1950s and mid 1960s anthropology tended increasingly to model itself after the [[natural science]]s. Some such as [[Llyd Fallers]] and [[Clifford Geertz]] focused on processes on modernization by which newly independent states could develop. Others, such as [[Julian Steward]] and [[Leslie White]] focused on how societies evolve and fit their ecological niche - an approach popularized by [[Marvin Harris]]. [[Economic anthropology]] as influenced by [[Karl Polanyi]] and practiced by [[Marshall Sahlins]] and [[Greg Dalton]] focused on how traditional [[economics]] ignored cultural and social factors. In England, British Social Anthropology's paradigm began to fragment as [[Max Gluckman]] and [[Peter Worsley]] experimented with Marxism and authors such as [[Rodney Needham]] and [[Edmund Leach]] incorporated Lévi-Strauss's structuralism into their work.
+
==Anthropology after World War II==
 +
Before [[World War II|WWII]] British 'social anthropology' and American 'cultural anthropology' were still distinct traditions. It was after the war that the two would blend to create a 'sociocultural' anthropology.
  
Structuralism also influenced a number of development in 1960s and 1970s, including [[cognitive anthropology]] and componential analysis. Authors such as [[David Schneider]], [[Clifford Geertz]], and [[Marshall Sahlins]] developed a more fleshed out concept of culture as a web of meaning or signification which proved very popular. In keeping with the times, much of anthropology became politicized through its opposition to the [[Vietnam War]] and the [[Algerian War of Independence]] and the authors of volumes such as ''Reinventing Anthropology'' worried about its relevance and [[Marxism]] became more and more popular in the discipline.
+
In the 1950s and mid-1960s anthropology tended increasingly to model itself after the [[natural science]]s. Some anthropologists, such as [[Lloyd Fallers]] and [[Clifford Geertz]], focused on processes of modernization by which newly independent states could develop. Others, such as [[Julian Steward]] and [[Leslie White]], focused on how societies evolve and fit their ecological niche —— an approach popularized by [[Marvin Harris]]. [[Economic anthropology]] as influenced by [[Karl Polanyi]] and practiced by [[Marshall Sahlins]] and [[George Dalton]] focused on how traditional [[economics]] ignored cultural and social factors. In England, British Social Anthropology's paradigm began to fragment as [[Max Gluckman]] and [[Peter Worsley]] experimented with Marxism and authors such as [[Rodney Needham]] and [[Edmund Leach]] incorporated Lévi-Strauss's structuralism into their work.
  
In the 1980s issues of power, such as those examined in [[Eric Wolf]]'s ''Europe and the People Without History'' - were central to the discipline. Books like ''Anthropology and the Colonial Equality'' pondered anthropology's ties to colonial inequality, while the immense popularity of authors such as [[Antonio Gramsci]] and [[Michel Foucault]] moved issues of power and hegemony into the spotlight. Gender and sexuality became a popular topic, as did the relationship between history and anthropology, influenced by [[Marshall Sahlins]] (again) who drew on [[Claude Lévi-Strauss|Lévi-Strauss]] and [[Fernand Braudel]] to examine the relationship between cultural structure and individual agency.  
+
Structuralism also influenced a number of developments in 1960s and 1970s, including [[cognitive anthropology]] and componential analysis. Authors such as [[David Schneider (anthropologist)|David Schneider]], [[Clifford Geertz]], and [[Marshall Sahlins]] developed a more fleshed-out concept of culture as a web of meaning or signification, which proved very popular within and beyond the discipline. In keeping with the times, much of anthropology became politicized through the [[Algerian War of Independence]] and opposition to the [[Vietnam War]]; [[Marxism]] became a more and more popular theoretical approach in the discipline. By the 1970s the authors of volumes such as ''Reinventing Anthropology'' worried about anthropology's relevance.
  
In the late 1980s and 1990s authors such as [[George Marcus]] and [[James Clifford]] pondered ethnographic authority and how and why anthropological knowledge was possible and authoritative. This was part of a more general trend of [[postmodernism]] that was popular. Currently anthropology focuses on globalization, medicine and biotechnology, indigenous rights, and the anthropology of Europe.
+
In the 1980s issues of power, such as those examined in [[Eric Wolf]]'s ''Europe and the People Without History'', were central to the discipline. Books like ''Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter'' pondered anthropology's ties to colonial inequality, while the immense popularity of theorists such as [[Antonio Gramsci]] and [[Michel Foucault]] moved issues of power and hegemony into the spotlight. Gender and sexuality became a popular topic, as did the relationship between history and anthropology, influenced by [[Marshall Sahlins]] (again), who drew on [[Claude Lévi-Strauss|Lévi-Strauss]] and [[Fernand Braudel]] to examine the relationship between social structure and individual agency.
 +
 
 +
In the late 1980s and 1990s authors such as [[George Marcus]] and [[James Clifford]] pondered ethnographic authority, particularly how and why anthropological knowledge was possible and authoritative. Ethnographies became more reflexive, explicitly addressing the author's methodology and cultural positioning, and their influence on his or her ethnographic analysis. This was part of a more general trend of [[postmodernism]] that was popular contemporaneously. Currently anthropologists have begun to pay attention to [[globalization]], [[medicine]] and [[biotechnology]], [[indigenous rights]], and the anthropology of industrialized societies.
  
 
==Politics of anthropology==
 
==Politics of anthropology==
Anthropology's traditional involvement with nonwestern cultures has involved it in politics in many different ways.
 
  
Some political problems arise simply because anthropologists usually have more power than the people they study. Some have argued that the discipline is a form of colonialist theft in which the anthropologist gains power at the expense of subjects. The anthropologist, they argue, can gain yet more power by exploiting knowledge and artifacts of the people she or he studies while the people she or he studies gain nothing, or even lose, in exchange. An example of this exploitative relationship can been seen in the collaboration in Africa prior to World War II of British anthropologists and colonial forces. More recently, there have been newfound concerns about bioprospecting, along with struggles for self-representation for native peoples and the repatriation of indigenous remains and material culture.
+
American cultural anthropology developed during the first four decades of the 20th century under the powerful influence of Franz Boas and his students and their struggle against racial determinism and the ethnocentrism of 19th century cultural evolutionism. With the additional impact of the Great Depression and World War II, American anthropology developed a pronounced liberal-left tone by the 1950s. However, the discipline's deep involvement with nonwestern cultures put it in a vulnerable position during the campus upheavals of the late 1960s and in the subsequent "culture wars." The "politics of anthropology" has become a pervasive concern since then. Whatever the realities, the notion of anthropology as somehow complicit in morally unacceptable projects has become a significant topic both within the discipline and in "cultural studies" and "post-colonialism," etc. A few of the central elements in this discourse are the following:
  
Other political controversies come from American anthropology's emphasis on cultural relativism and its long-standing antipathy to the concept of race. As mentioned above, Boas was a well-known social reformer whose activism and anthropological teaching went hand in hand. The development of [[sociobiology]] in the late 1960s was opposed by cultural anthropologists such as [[Marshall Sahlins]], who argued that these positions were reductive. While authors such John Randal Baker continued to develop the biological concept of race into the 1970s, the rise of genetics has proven to be central to developments on this front. As genetics continues to advance as a science, biological anthropologists such as [[Jonathan Marks]] have continued to refine their opposition to folk notions of race while addressing recent developments in biology.
+
*The claim that the discipline grew out of colonialism, perhaps was in league with it, and derived some of its key notions from it, consciously or not.   (See, for example, Gough, Pels and Salemink, but cf. Lewis 2004). It is often assumed that an example of this exploitative relationship can be seen in the relationship between of British anthropologists and colonial forces in Africa, yet this assumption has not been supported by much evidence. (See Asad et al; cf. Desai.)
  
Finally, anthropology has a history of entanglement with government intelligence agencies and anti-war politics. Boas publicly objected to US participation [[World War I]] and the collaboration of some anthropologists with US intelligence. In contrast, many of Boas' anthropologist contemporaries were active in the war effort in some form, including dozens who served in the [[Office of Strategic Services]] and the Office of War Information. In the 1950s, the [[American Anthropological Association]] provided the [[CIA]] information on the area specialities of its members, and a number of anthropologists participated in the U.S. government's [[Operation Camelot]] during the war in Vietnam. At the same time, many other anthropologists were active in the antiwar movement and passed resolutions in the [[American Anthropological Association]] (AAA) condemning anthropological involvement in covert operations. Anthropologists were also vocal in their opposition to the war in Iraq although their was no consensus amongst all practitioners of the discipline.
+
*The idea that social and political problems must arise because anthropologists usually have more power than the people they study; it is a form of colonialist theft in which the anthropologist gains power at the expense of subjects (Rabinow, Dwyer, McGrane). Anthropologists, they argue, can gain yet more power by exploiting knowledge and artifacts of the people they study while the people they study gain nothing, or even lose, in the exchange (for example, Deloria). Little critical writing has been published in response to these wide-ranging claims, themselves the product of the political concerns and atmosphere of their own times. (See Trencher for a critique.)
  
Professional anthropological bodies often object to the use of anthropology for the benefit of the [[state]]. Their codes of ethics or statements may proscribe anthropologists from giving secret briefings. The British Association for Social Anthropology has called these scholarships ethically dangerous and divise For example, the British Association for Social Anthropology has condemned the [[CIA]]'s [[Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program]], which anonymously funds anthropology students at US universities in preparation for those students to spy for the [[United States]] government. The AAA's current 'Statement of Professional Responsibility' clearly states that "in relation with their own government and with host governments... no secret research, no secret reports or debriefings of any kind should be agreed to or given."
+
*It is claimed the discipline was ahistorical, and dealt with its "objects" (sic) "out of time," to their detriment (Fabian). It is often claimed that anthropologists regularly "exoticized 'the Other,'" or, with equal assurance, that they inappropriately universalized "Others" and "human nature." (For references and a response see Lewis 1998.)
  
==Anthropological concepts==
+
*Other more explicitly political concerns have to do with anthropologists’ entanglements with government intelligence agencies, on the one hand, and anti-war politics on the other. Franz Boas publicly objected to US participation in [[World War I]], and after the war he published a brief expose and condemnation of the participation of several American archeologists in espionage in Mexico under their cover as scientists. But by the 1940s, many of Boas' anthropologist contemporaries were active in the allied war effort against the "Axis" (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan). Many served in the armed forces but others worked in intelligence (for example, Office of Strategic Services [OSS} and the Office of War Information). David H. Price's work on American anthropology during the Cold War provides detailed accounts of the pursuit and dismissal of several anthropologists for their vocal left-wing sympathies. On the other hand, attempts to accuse anthropologists of complicity with the CIA and government intelligence activities during the Vietnam War years have turned up surprisingly little. (Anthropologists did not participate in the stillborn Project Camelot, for example. See Lewis 2005) On the contrary, many anthropologists (students and teachers) were active in the antiwar movement and a great many resolutions condemning the war in all its aspects were passed overwhelmingly at the annual meetings of the [[American Anthropological Association]] (AAA). In the decades since the Vietnam war the tone of cultural and social anthropology, at least, has been increasingly politicized, with the dominant liberal tone of earlier generations replaced with one more radical, a mix of, and varying degrees of, Marxist, feminist, post-colonial, post-modern, Saidian, Foucaultian, identity-based, and more.
*[[Behavioral modernity]]
+
*Internationally known professor of evolutionary psychology, Kevin B. MacDonald criticized Boasian anthropology as part of a "Jewish strategy to facilitate mass immigration and to weaken the West" (The Culture of Critique, 2002).
*[[Colonialism]]
+
 
*[[Culture]]
+
Professional anthropological bodies often object to the use of anthropology for the benefit of the [[state]]. Their codes of ethics or statements may proscribe anthropologists from giving secret briefings. The British Association for Social Anthropology has called certain scholarships ethically dangerous. The AAA's current 'Statement of Professional Responsibility' clearly states that "in relation with their own government and with host governments... no secret research, no secret reports or debriefings of any kind should be agreed to or given."
*[[Ethnicity]]
+
 
*[[Exchange]] and [[Reciprocity]]
+
More recently, there have been concerns expressed about bioprospecting, along with struggles for self-representation for native peoples and the repatriation of indigenous remains and material culture, with anthropologists often in the lead on these issues.
*[[Family]]
+
 
*[[Gender role]]
+
Other political controversies come from the emphasis in American anthropology on cultural relativism and its long-standing antipathy to the concept of race. The development of [[sociobiology]] in the late 1960s was opposed by cultural anthropologists such as [[Marshall Sahlins]], who argued that these positions were reductive. While authors such John Randal Baker continued to develop the biological concept of race into the 1970s, the rise of genetics has proven to be central to developments on this front. As genetics continues to advance as a science some anthropologists such as Luca [[Cavalli-Sforza]] have continued to transform and advance notions of race through the use of recent developments in [[genetics]], such as tracing past migrations of peoples through their [[mitochondrial]] and Y-chromosomal [[DNA]], and [[ancestry-informative marker]]s.
*[[Kinship and descent]]
+
 
*[[Marriage]]
+
==Branches of anthropology==
*[[Model culture]]
+
In [[North America]], "anthropology" is traditionally divided into four sub-disciplines:
*[[Political system]]s
+
* '''[[Physical anthropology]]''', or [[biological anthropology]], which studies [[primatology|primate behavior]], [[human evolution]], [[osteology]], [[forensics]], and [[population genetics]];
*[[Race]]
+
* '''[[Cultural anthropology]]''' (called [[social anthropology]] in the [[United Kingdom]] and now often known as [[socio-cultural anthropology]]), which studies social networks, [[diffusion (anthropology)|diffusion]], social behavior, [[kinship]] patterns, law, politics, [[ideology]], religion, beliefs, patterns in production and consumption, exchange, socialization, gender, and other expressions of culture, with strong emphasis on the importance of [[fieldwork]] or participant observation (that is,  living among the social group being studied for an extended period of time);
*[[Religion]]
+
* '''[[Linguistic anthropology]]''', which studies variation in [[language]] across time and space, the social uses of language, and the relationship between language and culture, and
*[[Subsistence]]
+
* '''[[Archaeology]]''', which studies the material remains of human [[society|societies]]. Archaeology itself is normally treated as a separate (but related) field in the rest of the world, although closely related to the anthropological field of [[material culture]], which deals with physical objects created or used within a living or past group as a means of understanding its cultural values.
*[[Transculturation]]
+
 
 +
More recently, some anthropology programs began dividing the field into two, one emphasizing the [[humanities]] and [[critical theory]], the other emphasizing the [[natural science]]s and [[empiricism|empirical observation]].
  
 
==Anthropological fields and subfields==
 
==Anthropological fields and subfields==
*[[Biological anthropology]] (also [[Physical anthropology]])
+
* [[Biological anthropology]] (also [[physical anthropology]])
**[[Forensic anthropology]]
+
** [[Forensic anthropology]]
**[[Paleoethnobotany]]
+
** [[Paleoethnobotany]]
*[[Cultural anthropology]] (also [[Social anthropology]])
+
** [[Paleopathology]]
**[[Applied anthropology]]
+
** [[Medical anthropology]]
**[[Cross-Cultural Studies]]  
+
** [[Primatology]]
**[[Cyber anthropology]]
+
** [[Paleoanthropology]]
**[[Development anthropology]]
+
** [[Osteology]]
**[[Environmental anthropology]]
+
* [[Cultural anthropology]] (also [[social anthropology]])
**[[Economic anthropology]]
+
** [[Anthropology of art]]
**[[Ecological anthropology]]
+
** [[Anthropology of religion]]
**[[Ethnography]]
+
** [[Applied anthropology]]
**[[Ethnomusicology]]
+
** [[Cross-cultural studies]]
**[[Gender]]
+
** [[Cyber anthropology]]
**[[Medical anthropology]]
+
** [[Development anthropology]]
**[[Psychological anthropology]]
+
** [[Dual inheritance theory]]
**[[Political anthropology]]
+
** [[Environmental anthropology]]
**[[Anthropology of religion]]
+
** [[Economic anthropology]]
**[[Public anthropology]]
+
** [[Ecological anthropology]]
**[[Urban anthropology]]
+
** [[Ethnography]]
**[[Visual anthropology]]
+
** [[Ethnomusicology]]
 +
** [[Feminist anthropology]]
 +
** [[Gender]]
 +
** [[Human behavioral ecology]]
 +
** [[Medical anthropology]]
 +
** [[Psychological anthropology]]
 +
** [[Political anthropology]]
 +
** [[Public anthropology]]
 +
** [[Anthropology of religion]]
 +
** [[Symbolic anthropology]]
 +
** [[Urban anthropology]]
 +
** [[Visual anthropology]]
 +
* [[Anthropological linguistics|Linguistic anthropology]]
 +
** [[Descriptive linguistics|Synchronic linguistics]] (or descriptive linguistics)
 +
** [[Diachronic linguistics]] (or [[historical linguistics]])
 +
** [[Ethnolinguistics]]
 +
** [[Sociolinguistics]]
 +
* [[Archaeology]]
 +
** [[Zooarchaeology]]
  
*[[Anthropological linguistics|Linguistic anthropology]]
 
**[[Descriptive linguistics|Synchronic linguistics]] (or Descriptive linguistics)
 
**[[Diachronic linguistics]] (or [[Historical linguistics]])
 
**[[Ethnolinguistics]]
 
**[[Sociolinguistics]]
 
  
*[[Archaeology]]
+
 
 +
==Footnotes==
 +
<references/>
 +
 
 +
==References==
 +
* Asad, Talal (ed.) 1973. Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter.
 +
* Darnell, Regna. 2001. Invisible Genealogies: A History of Americanist Anthropology.
 +
* Desai, Gaurav. 2001. Subject to Colonialism: African Self-Fashioning and the Colonial Library.
 +
* Lewis, Herbert S. 1998. "The Misrepresentation of Anthropology and its Consequences." American Anthropologist, v, 100.
 +
* Lewis, Herbert S. 2004. "Imagining Anthropology's History." Reviews in Anthropology, v. 33.
 +
* Lewis, Herbert S. 2005. "Anthropology, the Cold War, and Intellectual History. In R. Darnell & F.W. Gleach (eds.), Histories of Anthropology Annual, Vol. I.
 +
* Pels, Peter & Oscar Salemink, eds. 2000. Colonial Subjects: Essays on the Practical History of Anthropology.
 +
* Price, David. 2004. Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists.
 +
* Rabinow, Paul. 1977. Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco.
 +
* Trencher, Susan. 2000. Mirrored Images: American Anthropology and American Culture, 1960-1980.
  
 
==External links==
 
==External links==
*[http://www.aaanet.org/ The American Anthropological Association Homepage] - the webpage of the largest professional organization of anthropologists in the world.
+
===Blogs and web portals===
*[http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/ow/09dbb3346fc1c2a4.html Race] - a book by John Randal Baker discussing the origins of racial classification and oppositions to the concept.
+
* [http://www.anthropology.net Anthropology.net] - A community orientated anthropology web portal with user run blogs, forums, tags, and a wiki.
*[http://www.antropologi.info Anthropology.Info]
+
* [http://www.cybercultura.it Cybercultura] - Collection of web resources about anthropology of cyberspace (in Italian)
*[http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20001120&c=2&s=price Anthropologists as Spies] - an article by David Price examining the relationship between American Anthropology and US intelligence services.
+
* [http://www.savageminds.org/ Savage Minds]—group blog
*[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4603271.stm Pat Roberts Intelligence Program] - a BBC article on the program
+
* [http://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology Social and Cultural Anthropology in the News] - (nearly) daily updated blog
*[http://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology Social and Cultural Anthropology in the News] - (nearly) daily updated blog
+
* [http://vlib.anthrotech.com/ Virtual Library for Anthropology] - indexed directory of Anthropology related links
*[http://www.anthrobase.com Anthrobase.com] - Collection of anthropological texts
+
 
*[http://www.cybercultura.it Cybercultura] - Collection of web resources about anthropology of cyberspace
+
===Organizations===
 +
* [http://www.aaanet.org/ The American Anthropological Association Homepage] - the webpage of the largest professional organization of anthropologists in the world.
 +
* [http://www.physanth.org/ American Association of Physical Anthropologists]
 +
* [http://sscl.berkeley.edu/~afaweb/reviews/index.html Association for Feminist Anthropology]
 +
* [http://www.movinganthropology.org The Moving Anthropology Student Network/Moving Anthropology Social Network (MASN)] is the largest international network of anthropology students and young academics
 +
* [http://www.therai.org.uk/ The Royal Anthropological Institute Homepage] - The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is the world's longest-established scholarly association dedicated to the furtherance of anthropology. They also have a large ethnographic film and video collection.
 +
* [http://www.hpsfaa.org/ High Plains Society for Applied Anthropology]
 +
* [http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/ National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution] - collects and preserves historical and contemporary anthropological materials that document the world's cultures and the history of anthropology.
 +
* [http://www.practicinganthropology.org/ National Association for the Practice of Anthropology]
 +
* [http://anthro.amnh.org/anthro.html Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History] - Over 160,000 objects from Pacific, North American, African, Asian ethnographic collections with images and detailed description, linked to the original catalogue pages, field notebooks, and photographs are available online.
 +
 
 +
===Texts and tutorials===
 +
* [http://www.anthrobase.com Anthrobase.com] - Collection of anthropological texts
 +
* [http://anthro.palomar.edu/tutorials/ Palomar College Anthropology Tutorials] - Tutorials on anthropological topics such as economic systems, kinship, subsistence, religion, and evolution
 +
 
  
 
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==Comments==
 
This is an unfinished work in progress—[[User:Jennifer Tanabe|Jennifer Tanabe]] 18:32, 16 Sep 2005 (CDT)
 

Revision as of 14:42, 7 September 2006


Anthropology (from the Greek word ἄνθρωπος, "human" or "person") consists of the study of humanity (see genus Homo). It is holistic in two senses: it is concerned with all humans at all times and with all dimensions of humanity. Anthropology is traditionally distinguished from other disciplines by its emphasis on cultural relativity, in-depth examination of context, and cross-cultural comparisons. More recently, it has also distinguished itself as a leader in culture critique and post-colonialism. Anthropology is methodologically diverse using both qualitative methods and quantitative methods. Case studies have historically played a key role in anthropology, for instance in producing ethnographies based on field research.

File:8403452 36f7580a25 o.jpg
Initiation rite of the Yao people of Malawi

Historical and institutional context

The anthropologist Eric Wolf once described anthropology as "the most scientific of the humanities, and the most humanistic of the sciences." Contemporary anthropologists claim a number of earlier thinkers as their forebears, and the discipline has several sources; Claude Lévi-Strauss, for example, claimed Montaigne and Rousseau as important influences. Anthropology can best be understood as an outgrowth of the Age of Enlightenment, a period when Europeans attempted systematically to study human behavior. The traditions of jurisprudence, history, philology, and sociology then evolved into something more closely resembling the modern views of these disciplines and informed the development of the social sciences, of which anthropology was a part. At the same time, the romantic reaction to the Enlightenment produced thinkers, such as Johann Gottfried Herder and later Wilhelm Dilthey, whose work formed the basis for the "culture concept," which is central to the discipline.

Table of natural history, 1728 Cyclopaedia

Institutionally, anthropology emerged from the development of natural history (expounded by authors such as Buffon) that occurred during the European colonization of the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Programs of ethnographic study have their origins in this era as the study of the "human primitives" overseen by colonial administrations. There was a tendency in late 18th century Enlightenment thought to understand human society as natural phenomena that behaved in accordance with certain principles and that could be observed empirically.[1] In some ways, studying the language, culture, physiology, and artifacts of European colonies was not unlike studying the flora and fauna of those places. Some critics point to the fact that the material culture of "civilized" nations such as China have historically been displayed in fine-art museums alongside European art, while artifacts from African and Native North American cultures were displayed in Natural History Museums, alongside dinosaur bones and nature dioramas.[citation needed] The British Museum or the Parisian Musée de l'Homme are examples of such museums—the Musée de l'Homme held the "Hottentot Venus" remains until the 1970s. Saartje Baartman, a Namaqua woman, was examined by anatomist Georges Cuvier. This being said, curatorial practice has changed dramatically in recent years, and it would be inaccurate to see anthropology as merely an extension of colonial rule and European chauvinism, since its relationship to imperialism was and is complex.[citation needed] [2]

Anthropology grew increasingly distinct from natural history, and by the end of the nineteenth century, it had begun to crystallize into its modern form; by 1935, for example, it was possible for T. K. Penniman to write a history of the discipline entitled "A Hundred Years of Anthropology." Early anthropology was dominated by proponents of unilinealism, who argued that all societies passed through a single evolutionary process, from the most primitive to the most advanced. Non-European societies were thus seen as evolutionary "living fossils," which could be studied in order to understand the European past. Scholars wrote histories of prehistoric migrations that were sometimes valuable but often also fanciful. It was during this time that Europeans, such as Paul Rivet, first accurately traced Polynesian migrations across the Pacific Ocean—though some of them believed those emigrations had originated in Egypt. Finally, concepts of race were developed with a view to better understanding the nature of the biological variation within the Human species, and tools such as Anthropometry were devised as a means of measuring and categorizing this variation, not just within the genus Homo, but in fossil Hominids and primates as well. Unfortunately racialistic concepts were abused by a few and gave rise to theories of Scientific racism.

Anténor Firmin wrote De l'égalité des races humaines (1885) as a direct rebuttal to Count Arthur de Gobineau’s polemical four-volume work Essai sur l'inegalite des Races Humaines (1853–1855), which asserted the superiority of the Aryan race and the inferiority of blacks and other people of color. Firmin’s work argued the opposite, that "all men are endowed with the same qualities and the same faults, without distinction of color or anatomical form. The races are equal" (pp. 450). Firmin grew up in Haiti, and was admitted to the Societé d’ Anthropologie de Paris in 1884 while serving as a diplomat. His persuasive critique and rigorous analysis of many of that society’s leading scholars made him an early pioneer in the so-called vindicationist struggle in anthropology. Many scholars also associate his work with the very first ideas of Pan-Africanism.

In the twentieth century, academic disciplines began to organize around three main domains. The domain of the sciences seeks to derive natural laws through reproducible and falsifiable experiments; that of the humanities reflects an attempt to study different national traditions, in the form of history and the arts, as an attempt to provide people in emerging nation-states with a sense of coherence; the social sciences emerged at this time as an attempt to develop scientific methods to address social phenomena and provide a universal basis for social knowledge. Anthropology does not easily fit into one of these categories, and different branches of anthropology draw on one or more of these domains.

Drawing on the methods of the natural sciences and developing new techniques involving not only structured interviews, but unstructured participant observation, and drawing on the new theory of evolution through natural selection, the branches of anthropology proposed the scientific study of a new object: humankind, conceived of as a whole. Crucial to this study is the concept of culture, which anthropologists defined both as a universal capacity and a propensity for social learning, thinking, and acting (which they saw as a product of human evolution and something that distinguishes Homo sapiens—and perhaps all species of genus Homo—from other species), and as a particular adaptation to local conditions, which takes the form of highly variable beliefs and practices. Thus, culture not only transcends the opposition between nature and nurture, but absorbs the peculiarly European distinction among politics, religion, kinship, and the economy as autonomous domains. Anthropology thus transcends the divisions between the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities to explore the biological, linguistic, material, and symbolic dimensions of humankind in all forms

Anthropology in the United States

Jacksonian America and polygenism

Late eighteenth century ethnology established the scientific foundation for the field, which began to mature when Andrew Jackson was President of the United States (1829-1837). Jackson was responsible for implementing the Indian Removal Act, the coerced and forced removal of an estimated 100,000 American Indians during the 1830s to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma; for insuring that the franchise was extended to all white men, irrespective of financial means while denying virtually all black men the right to vote; and, for suppressing abolitionists’ efforts to end slavery while vigorously defending that institution. Finally, he was responsible for appointing Chief Justice Roger B. Taney who would decide, in Scott v. Sandford (1857), that Negroes were “beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race. . . and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” As a result of this decision, black people, whether free or enslaved, could never become citizens of the United States.

It was in this context that the so-called American School of Anthropology thrived as the champion of polygenism or the doctrine of multiple origins—sparking a debate between those influenced by the Bible who believed in the unity of humanity and those who argued from a scientific standpoint for the plurality of origins and the antiquity of distinct types. Like the monogenists, these theories were not monolithic and often used words like races, species, hybrid, and mongrel interchangeably. A scientific consensus began to emerge during this period “that there exists a Genus Homo, embracing many primordial types of ‘species.’” Charles Caldwell, Samuel George Morton, Samuel A. Cartwright, George Gliddon, Josiah C. Nott, and Louis Agassiz, and even South Carolina Governor James Henry Hammond were all influential proponents of this school. While some were disinterested scientists, others were passionate advocates who used science to promote slavery in a period of increasing sectional strife. All were complicit in establishing the putative science that justified slavery, informed the Dred Scott decision, underpinned miscegenation laws, and eventually fueled Jim Crow. Samuel G. Morton, for example, claimed to be just a scientist but he did not hesitate to provide evidence of Negro inferiority to John C. Calhoun, the prominent pro-slavery Secretary of State to help him negotiate the annexation of Texas as a slave state.

Types of Mankind, 1854

The high-water mark of polygenitic theories was Josiah Nott and Gliddon’s voluminous eight-hundred page tome entitled Types of Mankind, published in 1854. Reproducing the work of Louis Agassiz and Samuel Morton, the authors spread the virulent and explicitly racist views to a wider, more popular audience. The first printing sold out quickly and by the end of the century it had undergone nine editions. Although many Southerners felt that all the justification for slavery they needed was found in the Bible, others used the new science to defend slavery and the repression of American Indians. Abolitionists, however, felt they had to take this science on on its own terms. And for the first time, African American intellectuals waded into the contentious debate. In the immediate wake of Types of Mankind and during the pitched political battles that led to Civil War, Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), the statesman and persuasive abolitionist, directly attacked the leading theorists of the American School of Anthropology. In an 1854 address, entitled “The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered,” Douglass argued that "by making the enslaved a character fit only for slavery, [slaveowners] excuse themselves for refusing to make the slave a freeman.... For let it be once granted that the human race are of multitudinous origin, naturally different in their moral, physical, and intellectual capacities... a chance is left for slavery, as a necessary institution.... There is no doubt that Messrs. Nott, Glidden, Morton, Smith and Agassiz were duly consulted by our slavery propagating statesmen" (p. 287).

Boasian anthropology

Franz Boas, one of the pioneers of modern anthropology, often called the "Father of American Anthropology"

Cultural anthropology in the United States was influenced greatly by the ready availability of Native American societies as ethnographic subjects. The field was pioneered by staff of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology, men such as John Wesley Powell and Frank Hamilton Cushing. Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881), a lawyer from Rochester, New York, became an advocate for and ethnological scholar of the Iroquois. His comparative analyses of religion, government, material culture, and especially kinship patterns proved to be influential contributions to the field of anthropology. Like other scholars of his day (such as Edward Tylor), Morgan argued that human societies could be classified into categories of cultural evolution on a scale of progression that ranged from savagery, to barbarism, to civilization. Generally, Morgan used technology (such as bowmaking or pottery) as an indicator of position on this scale.[3]

Franz Boas established academic anthropology in the United States in opposition to this sort of evolutionary perspective. Boasian anthropology was politically active and suspicious of research dictated by the U.S. government and wealthy patrons. It was rigorously empirical and skeptical of overgeneralizations and attempts to establish universal laws. Boas studied immigrant children to demonstrate that biological race was not immutable, and that human conduct and behavior resulted from nurture, rather than nature.

Influenced by the German tradition, Boas argued that the world was full of distinct cultures, rather than societies whose evolution could be measured by how much or how little "civilization" they had. He believed that each culture has to be studied in its particularity, and argued that cross-cultural generalizations, like those made in the natural sciences, were not possible. In doing so, he fought discrimination against immigrants, African Americans, and Native North Americans. Many American anthropologists adopted his agenda for social reform, and theories of race continue to be popular targets for anthropologists today.

Boas used his positions at Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History to train and develop multiple generations of students. His first generation of students included Alfred Kroeber, Robert Lowie, Edward Sapir and Ruth Benedict, all of whom produced richly detailed studies of indigenous North American cultures. They provided a wealth of details used to attack the theory of a single evolutionary process. Kroeber and Sapir's focus on Native American languages helped establish linguistics as a truly general science and free it from its historical focus on Indo-European languages.

The publication of Alfred Kroeber's textbook, Anthropology, marked a turning point in American anthropology. After three decades of amassing material, Boasians felt a growing urge to generalize. This was most obvious in the 'Culture and Personality' studies carried out by younger Boasians such as Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict. Influenced by psychoanalytic psychologists such as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, these authors sought to understand the way that individual personalities were shaped by the wider cultural and social forces in which they grew up. Though such works as Coming of Age in Samoa and The Chrysanthemum and the Sword remain popular with the American public, Mead and Benedict never had the impact on the discipline of anthropology that some expected. Boas had planned for Ruth Benedict to succeed him as chair of Columbia's anthropology department, but she was sidelined by Ralph Linton, and Mead was limited to her offices at the AMNH.

Anthropology in Britain

Whereas Boas picked his opponents to pieces through attention to detail, modern anthropology in Britain was formed by rejecting historical reconstruction in the name of a science of society that focused on analyzing how societies held together in the present.

The two most important scholars in this tradition were Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown and Bronislaw Malinowski, both of whom released seminal works in 1922. Radcliffe-Brown's initial fieldwork, in the Andaman Islands, was carried out in the old style of historical reconstruction. After reading the work of French sociologists Émile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss, Radcliffe-Brown published an account of his research (entitled simply The Andaman Islanders) that paid close attention to the meaning and purpose of rituals and myths. Over time, he developed an approach known as structural-functionalism, which focused on how institutions in societies worked to balance out or create an equilibrium in the social system to keep it functioning harmoniously. Malinowski, in contrast, advocated an unhyphenated functionalism, which examined how society functioned to meet individual needs. He is better known, however, for his detailed ethnography and advances in methodology. His classic ethnography, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, advocated getting "the native's point of view" and an approach to fieldwork that became standard in the field.

Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown's influence stemmed from the fact that they, like Boas, actively trained students and aggressively built up institutions that furthered their programmatic ambitions. This was particularly the case with Radcliffe-Brown, who spread his agenda for "Social Anthropology" by teaching at universities across the Commonwealth. From the late 1930s until the postwar period appeared a string of monographs and edited volumes that cemented the paradigm of British Social Anthropology. Famous ethnographies include The Nuer, by Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard, and The Dynamics of Clanship Among the Tallensi, by Meyer Fortes; well-known edited volumes include African Systems of Kinship and Marriage and African Political Systems. Contemporary social anthropology is international and has branched in many directions.

Anthropology in France

Anthropology in France has a less clear genealogy than the British and American traditions. Most commentators consider Marcel Mauss to be the founder of the French anthropological tradition. Mauss was a member of Durkheim's Année Sociologique group, and while Durkheim and others examined the state of modern societies, Mauss and his collaborators (such as Henri Hubert and Robert Hertz) drew on ethnography and philology to analyze societies which were not as 'differentiated' as European nation states. In particular, Mauss's Essay on the Gift was to prove of enduring relevance in anthropological studies of exchange and reciprocity.

Throughout the interwar years, French interest in anthropology often dovetailed with wider cultural movements such as surrealism and primitivism which drew on ethnography for inspiration. Marcel Griaule and Michel Leiris are examples of people who combined anthropology with the French avant-garde. During this time most of what is known as ethnologie was restricted to museums, such as the Musée de l'Homme founded by Paul Rivet, and anthropology had a close relationship with studies of folklore.

Above all, however, it was Claude Lévi-Strauss who helped institutionalize anthropology in France. In addition to the enormous influence his structuralism exerted across multiple disciplines, Lévi-Strauss established ties with American and British anthropologists. At the same time he established centers and laboratories within France to provide an institutional context within anthropology while training influential students such as Maurice Godelier and Françoise Héritier who would prove influential in the world of French anthropology. Much of the distinct character of France's anthropology today is a result of the fact that most anthropology is carried out in nationally funded research laboratories (CNRS) rather than academic departments in universities.

Other influential writers in the 1970s include Pierre Clastres, who explains in his books on the Guayaki tribe in Paraguay that "primitive societies" actively oppose the institution of the state. Therefore, these stateless societies are not less evolved than societies with states, but took the active choice of conjuring the institution of authority as a separate function from society. The leader is only a spokeperson for the group when it has to deal with other groups ("international relations") but has no inside authority, and may be violently removed if he attempts to abuse this position.

Anthropology after World War II

Before WWII British 'social anthropology' and American 'cultural anthropology' were still distinct traditions. It was after the war that the two would blend to create a 'sociocultural' anthropology.

In the 1950s and mid-1960s anthropology tended increasingly to model itself after the natural sciences. Some anthropologists, such as Lloyd Fallers and Clifford Geertz, focused on processes of modernization by which newly independent states could develop. Others, such as Julian Steward and Leslie White, focused on how societies evolve and fit their ecological niche —— an approach popularized by Marvin Harris. Economic anthropology as influenced by Karl Polanyi and practiced by Marshall Sahlins and George Dalton focused on how traditional economics ignored cultural and social factors. In England, British Social Anthropology's paradigm began to fragment as Max Gluckman and Peter Worsley experimented with Marxism and authors such as Rodney Needham and Edmund Leach incorporated Lévi-Strauss's structuralism into their work.

Structuralism also influenced a number of developments in 1960s and 1970s, including cognitive anthropology and componential analysis. Authors such as David Schneider, Clifford Geertz, and Marshall Sahlins developed a more fleshed-out concept of culture as a web of meaning or signification, which proved very popular within and beyond the discipline. In keeping with the times, much of anthropology became politicized through the Algerian War of Independence and opposition to the Vietnam War; Marxism became a more and more popular theoretical approach in the discipline. By the 1970s the authors of volumes such as Reinventing Anthropology worried about anthropology's relevance.

In the 1980s issues of power, such as those examined in Eric Wolf's Europe and the People Without History, were central to the discipline. Books like Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter pondered anthropology's ties to colonial inequality, while the immense popularity of theorists such as Antonio Gramsci and Michel Foucault moved issues of power and hegemony into the spotlight. Gender and sexuality became a popular topic, as did the relationship between history and anthropology, influenced by Marshall Sahlins (again), who drew on Lévi-Strauss and Fernand Braudel to examine the relationship between social structure and individual agency.

In the late 1980s and 1990s authors such as George Marcus and James Clifford pondered ethnographic authority, particularly how and why anthropological knowledge was possible and authoritative. Ethnographies became more reflexive, explicitly addressing the author's methodology and cultural positioning, and their influence on his or her ethnographic analysis. This was part of a more general trend of postmodernism that was popular contemporaneously. Currently anthropologists have begun to pay attention to globalization, medicine and biotechnology, indigenous rights, and the anthropology of industrialized societies.

Politics of anthropology

American cultural anthropology developed during the first four decades of the 20th century under the powerful influence of Franz Boas and his students and their struggle against racial determinism and the ethnocentrism of 19th century cultural evolutionism. With the additional impact of the Great Depression and World War II, American anthropology developed a pronounced liberal-left tone by the 1950s. However, the discipline's deep involvement with nonwestern cultures put it in a vulnerable position during the campus upheavals of the late 1960s and in the subsequent "culture wars." The "politics of anthropology" has become a pervasive concern since then. Whatever the realities, the notion of anthropology as somehow complicit in morally unacceptable projects has become a significant topic both within the discipline and in "cultural studies" and "post-colonialism," etc. A few of the central elements in this discourse are the following:

  • The claim that the discipline grew out of colonialism, perhaps was in league with it, and derived some of its key notions from it, consciously or not. (See, for example, Gough, Pels and Salemink, but cf. Lewis 2004). It is often assumed that an example of this exploitative relationship can be seen in the relationship between of British anthropologists and colonial forces in Africa, yet this assumption has not been supported by much evidence. (See Asad et al; cf. Desai.)
  • The idea that social and political problems must arise because anthropologists usually have more power than the people they study; it is a form of colonialist theft in which the anthropologist gains power at the expense of subjects (Rabinow, Dwyer, McGrane). Anthropologists, they argue, can gain yet more power by exploiting knowledge and artifacts of the people they study while the people they study gain nothing, or even lose, in the exchange (for example, Deloria). Little critical writing has been published in response to these wide-ranging claims, themselves the product of the political concerns and atmosphere of their own times. (See Trencher for a critique.)
  • It is claimed the discipline was ahistorical, and dealt with its "objects" (sic) "out of time," to their detriment (Fabian). It is often claimed that anthropologists regularly "exoticized 'the Other,'" or, with equal assurance, that they inappropriately universalized "Others" and "human nature." (For references and a response see Lewis 1998.)
  • Other more explicitly political concerns have to do with anthropologists’ entanglements with government intelligence agencies, on the one hand, and anti-war politics on the other. Franz Boas publicly objected to US participation in World War I, and after the war he published a brief expose and condemnation of the participation of several American archeologists in espionage in Mexico under their cover as scientists. But by the 1940s, many of Boas' anthropologist contemporaries were active in the allied war effort against the "Axis" (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan). Many served in the armed forces but others worked in intelligence (for example, Office of Strategic Services [OSS} and the Office of War Information). David H. Price's work on American anthropology during the Cold War provides detailed accounts of the pursuit and dismissal of several anthropologists for their vocal left-wing sympathies. On the other hand, attempts to accuse anthropologists of complicity with the CIA and government intelligence activities during the Vietnam War years have turned up surprisingly little. (Anthropologists did not participate in the stillborn Project Camelot, for example. See Lewis 2005) On the contrary, many anthropologists (students and teachers) were active in the antiwar movement and a great many resolutions condemning the war in all its aspects were passed overwhelmingly at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association (AAA). In the decades since the Vietnam war the tone of cultural and social anthropology, at least, has been increasingly politicized, with the dominant liberal tone of earlier generations replaced with one more radical, a mix of, and varying degrees of, Marxist, feminist, post-colonial, post-modern, Saidian, Foucaultian, identity-based, and more.
  • Internationally known professor of evolutionary psychology, Kevin B. MacDonald criticized Boasian anthropology as part of a "Jewish strategy to facilitate mass immigration and to weaken the West" (The Culture of Critique, 2002).

Professional anthropological bodies often object to the use of anthropology for the benefit of the state. Their codes of ethics or statements may proscribe anthropologists from giving secret briefings. The British Association for Social Anthropology has called certain scholarships ethically dangerous. The AAA's current 'Statement of Professional Responsibility' clearly states that "in relation with their own government and with host governments... no secret research, no secret reports or debriefings of any kind should be agreed to or given."

More recently, there have been concerns expressed about bioprospecting, along with struggles for self-representation for native peoples and the repatriation of indigenous remains and material culture, with anthropologists often in the lead on these issues.

Other political controversies come from the emphasis in American anthropology on cultural relativism and its long-standing antipathy to the concept of race. The development of sociobiology in the late 1960s was opposed by cultural anthropologists such as Marshall Sahlins, who argued that these positions were reductive. While authors such John Randal Baker continued to develop the biological concept of race into the 1970s, the rise of genetics has proven to be central to developments on this front. As genetics continues to advance as a science some anthropologists such as Luca Cavalli-Sforza have continued to transform and advance notions of race through the use of recent developments in genetics, such as tracing past migrations of peoples through their mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal DNA, and ancestry-informative markers.

Branches of anthropology

In North America, "anthropology" is traditionally divided into four sub-disciplines:

  • Physical anthropology, or biological anthropology, which studies primate behavior, human evolution, osteology, forensics, and population genetics;
  • Cultural anthropology (called social anthropology in the United Kingdom and now often known as socio-cultural anthropology), which studies social networks, diffusion, social behavior, kinship patterns, law, politics, ideology, religion, beliefs, patterns in production and consumption, exchange, socialization, gender, and other expressions of culture, with strong emphasis on the importance of fieldwork or participant observation (that is, living among the social group being studied for an extended period of time);
  • Linguistic anthropology, which studies variation in language across time and space, the social uses of language, and the relationship between language and culture, and
  • Archaeology, which studies the material remains of human societies. Archaeology itself is normally treated as a separate (but related) field in the rest of the world, although closely related to the anthropological field of material culture, which deals with physical objects created or used within a living or past group as a means of understanding its cultural values.

More recently, some anthropology programs began dividing the field into two, one emphasizing the humanities and critical theory, the other emphasizing the natural sciences and empirical observation.

Anthropological fields and subfields

  • Biological anthropology (also physical anthropology)
    • Forensic anthropology
    • Paleoethnobotany
    • Paleopathology
    • Medical anthropology
    • Primatology
    • Paleoanthropology
    • Osteology
  • Cultural anthropology (also social anthropology)
    • Anthropology of art
    • Anthropology of religion
    • Applied anthropology
    • Cross-cultural studies
    • Cyber anthropology
    • Development anthropology
    • Dual inheritance theory
    • Environmental anthropology
    • Economic anthropology
    • Ecological anthropology
    • Ethnography
    • Ethnomusicology
    • Feminist anthropology
    • Gender
    • Human behavioral ecology
    • Medical anthropology
    • Psychological anthropology
    • Political anthropology
    • Public anthropology
    • Anthropology of religion
    • Symbolic anthropology
    • Urban anthropology
    • Visual anthropology
  • Linguistic anthropology
    • Synchronic linguistics (or descriptive linguistics)
    • Diachronic linguistics (or historical linguistics)
    • Ethnolinguistics
    • Sociolinguistics
  • Archaeology
    • Zooarchaeology


Footnotes

  1. see, for instance, the writing of Auguste Comte
  2. Museums were not the only site of anthropological studies: with the New Imperialism period, starting in the 1870s, zoos became unattended "laboratories," especially the so-called "ethnological exhibitions" or "Negro villages." Thus, "savages" from the colonies were displayed, often nudes, in cages, in what has been called "human zoos." For example, in 1906, anthropologist Madison Grant put a Congolese pygmy named Ota Benga in a cage in the Bronx Zoo, and labelled him "the missing link" between an orangutan and the "white race" (Grant, a renowned eugenicist, was the author of The Passing of the Great Race (1916). Such exhibitions were attempts to illustrate and prove in the same movement the validity of scientific racism, the first formulation of which may be found in Arthur de Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of Human Races (1853-55). In 1931, the Colonial Exhibition in Paris still displayed Kanaks from New Caledonia in the "indigenous village"; it received 24 million visitors in six months, thus demonstrating the popularity of such "human zoos."
  3. This would be influential on the ideas of Karl Marx.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Asad, Talal (ed.) 1973. Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter.
  • Darnell, Regna. 2001. Invisible Genealogies: A History of Americanist Anthropology.
  • Desai, Gaurav. 2001. Subject to Colonialism: African Self-Fashioning and the Colonial Library.
  • Lewis, Herbert S. 1998. "The Misrepresentation of Anthropology and its Consequences." American Anthropologist, v, 100.
  • Lewis, Herbert S. 2004. "Imagining Anthropology's History." Reviews in Anthropology, v. 33.
  • Lewis, Herbert S. 2005. "Anthropology, the Cold War, and Intellectual History. In R. Darnell & F.W. Gleach (eds.), Histories of Anthropology Annual, Vol. I.
  • Pels, Peter & Oscar Salemink, eds. 2000. Colonial Subjects: Essays on the Practical History of Anthropology.
  • Price, David. 2004. Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists.
  • Rabinow, Paul. 1977. Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco.
  • Trencher, Susan. 2000. Mirrored Images: American Anthropology and American Culture, 1960-1980.

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